The phrase “leaving money on the table” is an interesting one. With the mental image of a transaction taking place, you would never walk away from the deal with some of your cash sitting on the table, content to leave with just a portion of the price you negotiated for whatever product you sold. 

That’s just what companies do, though, when they don’t do everything they could to maximize their profits. The situation is particularly deceptive in the realm of e-commerce, where everything takes place online and a dollar bill may never be seen by the seller from the beginning through the end of the process. If money is being left on the table, where exactly is it?

Here are four ways you’re letting someone along the way keep some of your money if you’re not doing e-commerce in the best way possible.

1. Using Too Many Different Service Providers

The more different companies that are involved in getting your product made, stored, sold, and shipped to the customer, the more money you’re spending per piece. If you can consolidate some of those steps within the same service provider, you eliminate quite a few fees, and you also save in a less obvious way: you dramatically cut down on the amount of time that one of your project managers needs to spend communicating with different people about the same project. 

For example, if your e-commerce business involves printing materials and then shipping those materials out when they are ordered, you might work with a printer and a fulfillment provider. With Spectra , it’s possible to actually combine both of those functions, letting you communicate with just one project manager to accomplish the entire job.

2. Dealing With Avoidable Mistakes

A mistake on the part of your fulfillment provider could be a small hiccup or a major disaster that forces other activities to come to a grinding halt while you put out fires. Even the small hiccups eventually add up to a significant amount of time and energy that must be wasted to solve problems. 

Since human beings are involved, you won’t be able to guarantee the elimination of all mistakes. However, if you work with a company that has a long history of success and a rigorous system of quality control in place, you can be confident that you’re minimizing that possibility and leaving yourself free to focus on development, rather than backtracking and fixing problems.

3. Stocking Inventory Incorrectly

Inventory management is a notoriously tricky topic. It can waste your money in two different ways, both of which tend to be fairly invisible unless you scrutinize what’s really going on.

Understocking inventory leads to wasted money as customers don’t get their orders on time, rush orders have to be placed at higher cost, and expedited shipping costs are paid by you in order to meet your obligations. These and other costs quickly eat into your profits, potentially even resulting in your fulfilling orders at a loss, all because your fulfillment provider underestimated how much stock you needed to have on hand.

Overstocking inventory also wastes money. If you order too many pieces to be stocked and they end up sitting on the shelves for years without being ordered, all of that capital spent on production is simply wasted. You’re also taking up space on the shelves that could have been used for items that move more quickly, keeping revenue flowing. Make sure that your fulfillment provider is using advanced inventory management software and constantly making adjustments to your stock levels in order to give you maximum efficiency.

4. Leaving Customers Dissatisfied

This is perhaps the most difficult area of wasted money to pinpoint. Who can know what might have happened if things had been different? That kind of thing is impossible to know for sure, but what we can say is that if a customer is not satisfied with the quality of the ordering experience, the product itself, or the way it is delivered, they are not likely to order again, and they certainly are not likely to recommend your e-commerce company to others. 

While customer reviews are very important to an e-commerce company, it’s also a mistake to rely too heavily on them to know what your customers think of you. A customer who is mildly dissatisfied with their experience may not write a scathing review of your company, but they will probably look elsewhere the next time to see if a competitor can do better. That negative outcome won’t be easy for you to identify, but it will represent money “left on the table” that could have been yours if you had provided an outstanding experience for that customer if you had earned their repeat business.

All of these are reasons that you need the support of a fulfillment provider that you trust to support your e-commerce company with truly excellent service. That kind of partnership leads to you finding even more revenue as customers enjoy the shopping experience, learn that their orders are always fulfilled on time and accurately, and recommend your company to their friends and family.

Spectra has been proud to provide great fulfillment as a 3PL provider for decades, and our team specializes in making sure our clients aren’t wasting money in hard-to-spot ways. By maximizing inventory efficiency and maintaining strict quality control measures, we keep your customers satisfied each time they place an order. Our experience in the fulfillment industry also empowers us to guide you in consolidating service providers and taking other steps that can eliminate unnecessary costs along your fulfillment chain.

Are you ready to stop leaving money on the table? Give your e-commerce business the fulfillment support it needs by making Spectra part of your team. In a consultation with one of our fulfillment experts, you can get a good idea of what we can offer, how quickly we can get you up and running, and what you can expect with our help.